Weaponisation of Ebola by Muslim terrorists

[Anomalocaris]

Ebola is a dangerous disease, but it isn't really a good choice for weaponization. To be a strong contender for that purpose it needs to be easily transmissible via air, water e.t.c. Also it needs to be more difficult to detect. In a western nation with good medical facilities, it would cause much less terror than suicide-bombings. But as we move forward in time, I am pretty sure that bio-warfare is the future of terrorism.

1. I think you overestimate the quality of the average medical facilities and personel in countries like the US. The US has some of the world's best medical facilities, yes. But most common facilities are understaffed, overwhelmed, poorly trained, poorly coordinated. The fiasco with first Ebola case in the US amply demonstrates that. 1 patient grossly mishandled more than once, and is now dead. 2 nurses, supposedlyt protected, are infected. CDC, hospital and the nurses union are accusing each other. CDC said nurses did something wrong. Nurses say there was no consistent guideline on what is the right thing to do, the hospital say it is the only side that bears no fault. There turn out, announced only 3 weeks into the fiasco, that only 4 facilities in the entire country are thought to be adaquately equipped to properly handle ebola cases. The hospital in which the first ebola patient in the US died is, guess what, not one of them. The foresight and coordinatiion is such that no one thought to involve them in the first Ebola case in the US.

2. I believe in case of a serious outbreak of Ebola in the United States, a far higher than expected proportion of people who may have been infected, but who have yet to show symptoms, would break containment on the theory that they personally would have a better chance by leaving the infected area, even if they would thereby expose uninfected areas to infections. The bottom feeding tea partiers like Sarah Palin would undoubtedly say any coordinated effort to prevent people in infected area from leaving would consititute a "death panel".

3. Ebola may not fit the criteria of the best biological warfare agent that could be designed, but it has a attribute superior to the best biological agent that can be designed - it already exists. One does not need the backing of a major state, a state of the art lab and dozens of PhDs from the best research universities to create it

4. It is not all together clear how close Ebola is to mutating into a strain that could be transmitted by air.

5. It would appear it is quite infectious enough without being transimissible by air. WHO estimate 10000 new infections a week by year's end. That means 5000-9000 deaths a week. That would like a World Trade Center collapse, every week, for the duration. Or one Iraq war, every week, for the duration.

[Lemonvariable72]

Okay professor I'll bite. First off you speak as a authority on what Lucifer wants, but how do you know? Been speaking to him? Or just going by the good book? Reading the Bible objectively makes very critical to the claims Satan is evil. You see the reason for this is because Satan does nothing that is really evil. In fact he granted humanity the gift of reason, when god had created us essentially to be his pets. So tell me, in your own words, why is god good and Satan evil?

[Aoi Magi]

1. I think you overestimate the quality of the average medical facilities and personel in countries like the US. The US has some of the world's best medical facilities, yes. But most common facilities are understaffed, overwhelmed, poorly trained, poorly coordinated. The fiasco with first Ebola case in the US amply demonstrates that. 1 patient grossly mishandled more than once, and is now dead. 2 nurses, supposedlyt protected, are infected. CDC, hospital and the nurses union are accusing each other. CDC said nurses did something wrong. Nurses say there was no consistent guideline on what is the right thing to do, the hospital say it is the only side that bears no fault. There turn out, announced only 3 weeks into the fiasco, that only 4 facilities in the entire country are thought to be adaquately equipped to properly handle ebola cases. The hospital in which the first ebola patient in the US died is, guess what, not one of them. The foresight and coordinatiion is such that no one thought to involve them in the first Ebola case in the US.

You are right but you are also overlooking the fact that it did get recognized and a possible outbreak was prevented. It is bad, but could've been a whole lot worse.

2. I believe in case of a serious outbreak of Ebola in the United States, a far higher than expected proportion of people who may have been infected, but who have yet to show symptoms, would break containment on the theory that they personally would have a better chance by leaving the infected area, even if they would thereby expose uninfected areas to infections. The bottom feeding tea partiers like Sarah Palin would undoubtedly say any coordinated effort to prevent people in infected area from leaving would consititute a "death panel".

Yes humanity is stupid, but the western nations do have the resources to put proper containment strategies in place, a lot quicker than the African nations can.

3. Ebola may not fit the criteria of the best biological warfare agent that could be designed, but it has a attribute superior to the best biological agent that can be designed - it already exists. One does not need the backing of a major state, a state of the art lab and dozens of PhDs from the best research universities to create it

...but there are better alternatives for causing mass panic and terror.

4. It is not all together clear how close Ebola is to mutating into a strain that could be transmitted by air.

It presently doesn't have a reason to mutate in that direction, but then again I am not really someone who can predict such things... but if it does mutate that way, and if we don't have a proper cure, then it won't really need terrorists to weaponize it anymore.

5. It would appear it is quite infectious enough without being transimissible by air. WHO estimate 10000 new infections a week by year's end. That means 5000-9000 deaths a week. That would like a World Trade Center collapse, every week, for the duration. Or one Iraq war, every week, for the duration.

The infection has spread so far and so much mainly due to geopolitical and socio-economical reasons, not because of it's own infectiousness.

[Fidel_Castronaut]

Prof, read this:

http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entert...86635.html

If you read this article and think "my god these people are fucking insane for believing this shit" then you might just realise how everyone on this forum thinks of you.

[Anomalocaris]

You are right but you are also overlooking the fact that it did get recognized and a possible outbreak was prevented. It is bad, but could've been a whole lot worse.Yes humanity is stupid, but the western nations do have the resources to put proper containment strategies in place, a lot quicker than the African nations can.

Whether the outbreak is prevented is yet to be seen. One of the infected nurse flew on a plane with hundred plus passengers the day before she reported symptoms.

Yes humanity is stupid, but the western nations do have the resources to put proper containment strategies in place, a lot quicker than the African nations can.

The question is not whether the US can do better than some African country. The question whether the US can do well enough to control any outbreak on its own soil. At the moment it is not clear exactly how good is well enough. So one could only hope to do as well as one possibly can. Here I think as good as one possibly can for the US is rather worse than for much of the rest of the industrialized western nations. The reason is I think a larger percentage of population in the US would lack the proper mindset to support a containment strategy that would calculatingly increase the risk to a smaller number in order to reduce the risk to a larger number. I think more Americans have been indoctrinated in the last 30 years into the view that the most honorable social attitude is a psychopathic everyone for himself attitude.

...but there are better alternatives for causing mass panic and terror.

I don't think so. Ebola can be inflicted on the US through the simple expedient of several plane tickets. One needn't make or bring a bomb, one needn't have anything that would raise an alarm at any check points. One only needs to travel to the infected area first and then come to the US under a different name. The level of organization and planning needed to borrow the Ebola epedemic in African as a tool to spread terror in the US is far less than conventional means of terrorism.

It presently doesn't have a reason to mutate in that direction, but then again I am not really someone who can predict such things... but if it does mutate that way, and if we don't have a proper cure, then it won't really need terrorists to weaponize it anymore.

Mutation doesn't occur for a reason. What is more is it can already be an effective weapon even without it.

The infection has spread so far and so much mainly due to geopolitical and socio-economical reasons, not because of it's own infectiousness

It could easily spread without the same geopolitical and socio-economical reasons because a small group wants it to spread and are willing to contract the disease and die to spread it.

[ForumMember77]

I think the above is overly parsimonious and misses out some salient points about both the nature of infection contraction and control and the socio-demographic reality of West Africa.

Simply put, if we (non-African) have a problem we couldn't look to any African country for aid.

The opposite is true, to the point were even the people living there can't tell the difference between their own economy and aid. If Africa ever stopped being in some need of aid entitlement, it would collapse economically.

Africa is a constitution of welfare states, and the people living there admit it.
Whilst there are many contributing factors, if the population of Africa were substituted for the population of China or England. There wouldn't be an issue.

Out of a sense of nationalistic pride, or rightful suspicion, the countries inhabitants would deal with the problem.

We are creating a 'population bubble' with all the 'aid' we give, that will burst. Either with internal infighting and genocide, or, some sort of transmittable disease that their societal infrastructure cant contain.

Here's a query; Ask yourself, honestly.

What would happen if the rest of the world were unable or unwilling to give 'aid' to Africa ?

The population would die down to what Africans are able to sustain. Via whatever means. I am not suggesting we should lose our empathy. But creating this 'population bubble' seems such a disastrous idea.

EDIT: also thanks, the number of people willing to insult me on this forum for holding an idea contrary to their own is somewhat disheartening.
It's nice to have someone disagree without assaulting my character............... can't find smiley face thingy to click on (assume smiley here)

[Fidel_Castronaut]

I think the above is overly parsimonious and misses out some salient points about both the nature of infection contraction and control and the socio-demographic reality of West Africa.

Simply put, if we (non-African) have a problem we couldn't look to any African country for aid.

Shortage of given raw materials, perhaps?

The opposite is true, to the point were even the people living there can't tell the difference between their own economy and aid. If Africa ever stopped being in some need of aid entitlement, it would collapse economically.

I want to see evidence of this, please.

I reiterate that the financial gains garnered from 'Africa' (not homogenous) are probably greater for the west than what we put in. Do you know what the UK's total international aid budget is, bearing in mind it's currently the 6th largest economy in the world? 0.7% gross national income. 0.7% spread over many countries that require aid, a small proportion of which will be west Africa. I don't have the figures to hand but for the UK that means, for me, on my current salary, between £100 & £140 of my annual salary goes to world aid (in simplistic terms). Spread that out over, say, around 50m people (a conservative estimate) and per person that would equate to less than a millionth of a pound/person. Doesn't break my bank, nor my country's. And I hardly think it's flooding their economies with wealth either.

Africa is not one big homogenous place, it's as diverse as any other continent like Asia or South America. What justification do you have for saying that 'Africans' can't tell the difference between their own economy and aid? What % of which state's GDP is directly as a result of revenue streams generated by aid, and to what degree has this affected the perception of said African state's economy?

Taking your comments prima facie as true, what portion of blame could you place on the individual citizens of that state and what could be apportioned to, for example, lack of education, technological ability, or, say, corrupt government structures?

Africa is a constitution of welfare states, and the people living there admit it.
Whilst there are many contributing factors, if the population of Africa were substituted for the population of China or England. There wouldn't be an issue.

I don't know how on earth you can qualify that statement with any evidence to back it up.

Incidentally large swathes of East Africa are given over to chinese developers for the exploitation of raw minerals and other resources at the expense of those state's labour.

We could look at corruption perhaps? Or the incompatibility of certain political systems with the agents within that country and their still very often tribal associations?

Out of a sense of nationalistic pride, or rightful suspicion, the countries inhabitants would deal with the problem.

Again, I don't think you could qualify that statement with evidence. There's no knowing what people from a different state would do when put into the same context that many poor and destitute Liberians or Sierra leoneans [sic] and are facing right now.

[Fidel_Castronaut]

Smiley assumed

[ForumMember77]

Again, I don't think you could qualify that statement with evidence. There's no knowing what people from a different state would do when put into the same context that many poor and destitute Liberians or Sierra leoneans [sic] and are facing right now.

You neglected the question I suggested you ask, yourself.

If other countries stopped aid to Africa, for whatever reason, what would happen ?

We both know, their population would reconcile itself with the societal construct of the peoples within.

[Anomalocaris]

As it turns out, the Texas nurse who contracted ebola from the west African patient, who then boarded a commercial flight to fly half way across the country with 132 other passengers, had called CDC prior to her flight to report that she had a temperature. She also told CDC she planned to fly on a commercial passenger plane. Despite what CDC said, ex post, had been the guideline all along, the CDC did not advice her to refrain from flying. Afterwards it become a major news item that the infected nurse flew with 132 other passengers, the CDC started to look for someone else, including the infected nurse, to blame for CDC not following its own guidelines.

This is all not bidding well for efficiency, effectiveness , coordination and collaboration of any future efforts to contain a major ebola outbreak on US soil.